The SPEAC team met with CEPI’s Clinical Development Team in London the week of June 12, 2023, to discuss progress and strategies to build safety into every step of CEPI’s approach to vaccine development.
The Clinical Development Team consists of experts in vaccine clinical development and pharmacovigilance. They support CEPI’s larger Research and Development team with strategy and technical oversight.
Jakob Cramer, Director of Clinical Development at CEPI, opened the meeting with an overview of CEPI’s 100-Day mission to “reduce the time it takes to produce lifesaving vaccines.” Cramer and the SPEAC team reflected on the need to build vaccine safety into each stage of development, from creating prototypes to strengthening disease surveillance. CEPI’s priority pathogens, Lassa fever, Chikungunya, and Nipah virus, and Disease X were the focus of many discussions.
Over the two-day meeting, SPEAC experts presented progress and challenges in their work to develop tools, resources, and the digitalization needed to link and grow vaccine safety expertise and support CEPI-sponsored vaccine developers.
Additional partners participated in the meeting, including CEPI’s Pharmacovigilance lead, Alex Precioso, the Child Health and Mortality Prevention Surveillance (CHAMPS) network, and The Global Health Network. The SPEAC team looks forward to continuing to collaborate with the Clinical Development Team and make SPEAC tools accessible to CEPI-funded developers and the broader vaccine safety community.
